Having just had a rather heated discussion with some co-workers a few days ago about religion’s influence on politics (which led to some talk about the abortion issue, among others), I strongly appreciate Archbishop Chaput’s words regarding Senator Biden’s recent plunge into the Nancy Pelosi school of “Catholic” teaching.
Abortion is not an issue on which reasonable people can disagree. It is either murder, or it is not. Logic, not belief, dictates that an unborn child is a human being, although it seems that only those with faith still retain sufficient logic to see the connection. Sin, we know, obfuscates reason (I’ve certainly seen that at work in my own life) and if that is not what is at work in these instances I can’t fathom what is. I don’t mean to argue that liberals are unintelligent, or even that they are horrible people. I know quite a few who are very respectable, very smart individuals whose intellects seem to have been twisted into violating the principle of non-contradiction on this issue. Again, either it is a human, or it is not. It can’t simply be a human if we want it to be, and not a human if we don’t want it to be. The notion of “choice” without reference to what a person is choosing (and what that choice entails) is the most extreme and horrific form of intellectual dishonesty imaginable.
Questions of viability are also the most dangerous sort of straw men, crafted to distract us from the real issue and stalling any meaningful attempt to put a stop to this holocaust - one which far outweighs in numbers the crimes against humanity of Hitler and Stalin combined. Also a distraction (and a stupid position, to be frank) are those exceptions made for rape or incest (the latter, one imagines, usually being related to the former in these cases). Who among us believes that the way to solve a crime is to punish one of the victims rather than the perpetrator? Why should a rapist simply go to jail, when his offspring is put to death for their father’s crime?
It is therefore encouraging when Chaput writes:
Sen. Biden is a man of distinguished public service. That doesn’t excuse poor logic or bad facts. Asked when life begins, Sen. Biden said that, “it’s a personal and private issue.” But in reality, modern biology knows exactly when human life begins: at the moment of conception. Religion has nothing to do with it.People might argue when human “personhood” begins - though that leads public policy in very dangerous directions - but no one can any longer claim that the beginning of life is a matter of religious opinion.
Sen. Biden also confused the nature of pluralism. Real pluralism thrives on healthy, non-violent disagreement; it requires an environment where people of conviction will struggle respectfully but vigorously to advance their beliefs. In his interview, the senator observed that other people with strong religious views disagree with the Catholic approach to abortion. It’s certainly true that we need to acknowledge the views of other people and compromise whenever possible - but not at the expense of a developing child’s right to life. Abortion is a foundational issue; it is not an issue like housing policy or the price of foreign oil. It always involves the intentional killing of an innocent life, and it is always, grievously wrong…
In his Meet the Press interview, Sen. Biden used a morally exhausted argument that American Catholics have been hearing for 40 years: i.e., that Catholics can’t “impose” their religiously based views on the rest of the country. But resistance to abortion is a matter of human rights, not religious opinion. And the senator knows very well as a lawmaker that all law involves the imposition of some people’s convictions on everyone else. That is the nature of the law. American Catholics have allowed themselves to be bullied into accepting the destruction of more than a million developing unborn children a year. Other people have imposed their “pro-choice” beliefs on American society without any remorse for decades.
If you’re reading this and you think abortion is an option that should remain on the table, tell me why? How does Roe not impose the pro-abortion view on those of us who believe it’s murder? What is it, exactly, that you want to be able to choose? Why should the comfort and convenience of not being burdened by an unwanted child be so sacred as to need a right, enshrined in law, that allows you to kill the child that gets in the way of your desire?
I cannot imagine a greater narcissism, with perhaps the exception of those individuals who, in the face of advancing medical technology and sonographic imaging which rules out all the foolish arguments about “unviable cell masses” with clear pictures of little fingers and toes, recognize out loud that the choice they wish to retain is the choice of murder - the killing of a baby, so that they may live as they wish.
What we deserve as a nation for allowing this to continue is too horrible to imagine. History, if the world ever comes to its senses, will not remember us fondly.
(H/T to Peter)
